Originally Posted by
homelyboy
I overate caviar in my childhood. My uncle was a steward with a cruise ship on the Volga and had some sort of cronies in Astrakhan. And we lived on the Volga, too, so he visited us at least once or twice every year bringing a loaf of pressed caviar.
I cannot say that I disliked the taste, but I hated it primarily for huge sums of money that my mom paid for it, 30 rubles or so. For 30 rubles I might add 3 or 4 model cars to my collection! And malossol cucumbers were much cheaper and far tastier to me.
I fancy how much would that loaf cost these days. A fortune!
Could I bother you as an expert on the subject: I've read, as my family has some connections to Imperial Russia and it's officer corps, a lot about food culture in the Czarist times.
Would you have any idea if the famous, dried "Balyk" sturgeon from Astrakhan is still commercially available in Russia? Doesn't matter if it comes from farmed fish. I'd really like to relive once what I've read in culinary descriptions and have that with salted bread and vodka as a zakuska.